The Race to Offer Better Sleep at 35,000 Feet

By

Scott McCartney

Updated Dec. 6, 2012 6:14 p.m. ET

Finally some good news for long-haul business fliers: Airlines are putting in more sleeper seats that fold all the way flat. The bad news? Not all of them are as far along as they'd like passengers to think.

Travelers hate angled business-class beds because they slide down. Airlines have been slow to upgrade to fully flat. Some have all planes with horizontal beds; others advertise them, but only have them on a small number of planes. Scott McCartney on Lunch Break has a scorecard with 30 airlines tells where to get the best bed. Photo: Delta Air Lines.

American Airlines, for example, is excitedly telling customers that it is rolling out fully flat, horizontal beds in business class for overseas flights. Passengers are treated to a promotional video featuring the beds right after every safety video.

But for now, American doesn't have a single such bed in the air.

ENLARGE

On Air New Zealand, foldout seat beds offer direct aisle access to all passengers. Some airlines' configurations require stepping over another seat.
New Zealand Airlines

By not yet having the lie-flat sleepers far preferred by travelers over business-class seats that fold down to a bed at an angle, American—and a handful of other carriers without horizontal flatbed seats—are flying far behind competitors. Some, like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, already have horizontal beds in business class on all their overnight trips.

Lying horizontally, rather than at an angle, makes for better sleep by relieving pressure on some body parts. It also lets people sleep on their sides or stomach in more natural positions.

ENLARGE

British Airways pioneered the flatbed business-class seat back in 2001. Seats are 25 inches wide with a memory-foam headrest and push-button privacy screen.
British Airways

Herb Weiner flies from Texas to Ghana every month in business class. But if the sleeper seat is angled so that his feet are lower than his head, he wakes up repeatedly "in a heap at the bottom.'' His solution is less than ideal: He checks for an empty row of four seats back in coach where he can get a flat-night's sleep.

ENLARGE

United Airlines has more planes flying with horizontal business-class flat beds than any other carrier.
United Airlines

Weiner says he often scours airline schedules looking for flights with fully-flat beds. "If I could get that to Africa,'' he says, "I'd take it every time.'' He's not alone. Airlines say their customers' top priority, by far, is sleep. (Some trans-Atlantic carriers go as far as encouraging their premium passengers to eat in departure lounges so they can sleep longer on the plane.) "It's become a major issue," says Mike Henny, director of product for Delta Air Lines, which is about halfway through upgrading to flat beds. "People are much more keenly aware of the difference."

ENLARGE

Delta Air Lines currently has equipped its 777-200LR aircraft with these flatbed seats, which offer some of the largest privacy/entertainment screens in the air.
Delta

Airlines say travelers armed with information from sites like SeatGuru.com and frequent-flier communities like FlyerTalk.com and MilePoint.com have become a lot pickier about seating. "People look at all aspects of a seat,'' says Nik Lusardi, lead designer at Virgin Atlantic in London, which spent five years developing its newest seat. For airlines, "no longer can things be done half-baked,'' he says.

Carriers have chosen vastly different paths to 180-degree seats, largely because of cost. A single business-class seat can run as much as a new BMW—$40,000 to $80,000, or easily $2 million per wide-body airplane. The investment also includes a few years of design (to shoehorn as many as possible into each plane), and testing and certification work required by aviation regulators.

One reason the seats cost so much: Padding and cushioning for a chair is quite different than for a bed, and a business-class seat is both. "The cushioning is quite intricate,'' says Simon Talling-Smith, British Airways' executive vice president of the Americas. And while some fold out manually, most have push-button systems to go from upright to flat.

A few airlines that cater to top-dollar travelers, including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Swiss and Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways, have put fully flat, non-angled beds in all their business-class cabins. Virgin Atlantic is into its second generation of horizontal flat bed, with an innovative body-cradling suspension system and webbing fabric that is the same as what's used in the Herman Miller "Aeron'' chair.

Yet American Airlines, Air France/KLM,Japan Airlines and Israel's El Al have no horizontal beds flying now, only sloping seats for sleeping in business class.

American's first flat bed won't arrive until a brand-new Boeing 777-300 joins the fleet early next year. Retrofitting the existing fleet won't start until early 2014—after competitors will have completed upgrades.

American says its financial woes, culminating in a bankruptcy filing a year ago, left it behind competitors in upgrading business class. "We had limited capital resources to invest in customer experience enhancements up until this point,'' says spokeswoman Stacey Frantz.

United Airlines, the world's largest airline by passenger miles flown, has more planes flying with business-class horizontal flat beds than any other carrier. By the end of the month, United will have equipped 174 planes with flat beds; 15 currently fly with angled business-class seats, and they'll be changed by next June.

Delta Air Lines is hustling to catch up, with 46% of its international fleet currently equipped with fully flat business-class beds. It will take Delta until mid-2014 to get all its international aircraft upgraded.

Some airlines say fully flat beds draw higher fares. Other carriers say they don't generate greater revenue, but they do get much higher customer satisfaction scores. "You need to put them on to maintain market share,'' says Mark Bergsrud, United's senior vice president of marketing.

Several airlines say while their entire long-range international fleets aren't equipped with flat beds, all planes used to fly to and from the U.S. are. Those carriers include Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, LAN and Air New Zealand. Japan's All Nippon Airways has all U.S. destinations served by lie-flat business beds except Honolulu and Washington's Dulles International Airport. Korean Air says it has 70% of U.S. destinations covered.

Airlines first went to angled beds in business class because seats could be laid out closer together, squeezing more into the very precious real estate of an airplane cabin. The feet of one passenger could fit under the head of the passenger one row in front. But with horizontal flat beds, seats have to be spaced further apart.

To get around that, airlines have developed clever ways to turn seats and angle them. Some put the foot-end of beds under consoles and tables that are part of seats in the next row. Some turn seats sideways in zipper-like configurations jutting out from sidewalls so passengers are side-by-side rather than one behind another.

British Airways, the first airline to put fully flat beds in business class in 2001, uses a patented yin-yang set up with one passenger facing the front of the jet and the seatmate facing the rear. Since shoulders are wider than feet, the total width taken up by the two paired seats is less.

U.S. airlines are bringing lie-flat seats to domestic cross-country flights. Delta, American and United say they will begin deploying fully flat business-class beds on flights between New York and Los Angeles, some beginning as early as next year.

That can't come soon enough for travelers like Ellie Kane. She and her husband, both top-level frequent fliers on American, travel around the world with their two children. On a trip to Tokyo last summer on American, the lack of a flat bed in business class was somewhat painfully evident.

"Even my kids said the full bed [on a different flight] was so much better,'' says Ms. Kane, a former Pan American World Airways flight attendant. "When the seat is angled, you kind of slide," she says. "I can only get a two-hour nap."

Corrections & Amplifications Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific offer fully horizontal sleeper seats on all of their flights to the U.S. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Singapore Air and Cathay Pacific offer such seats on all of their flights world-wide.

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